


Falling Down (and Getting Back Up Again)

by Welfycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 02:30:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welfycat/pseuds/Welfycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An emergency on Atlantis keeps Evan from where he wants to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Down (and Getting Back Up Again)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for eriah221's fandom stocking.  
> Content Notes: None.  
> Author Notes: Takes place late season three. Established relationship.

The halls of the city were nearly empty when Evan finally was able to head back to his quarters. He had a quiet evening all planned out: dinner with David in the mess hall, a walk down to one of the piers as they talked about their day - Evan's was supposed to be filled with paperwork, meetings, and supervising the monthly inventory - and then retreating to one of their rooms because they were both supposed to have tomorrow off. Evan checked his watch and sighed when he saw that it was already tomorrow, as of three hours ago. He suspected he would be able to sleep in, but actually getting the day off was now unlikely.

He reminded himself that everything could be much worse - people could have died, the Wraith could have come while they had no shield, the entire damned city could have exploded instead of just four of the small laboratories. Evan ran one of his still filthy hands through his hair and wondered if they could get through the clean up fast enough that he might be able to reschedule dinner with David for the coming evening. He saw a weary engineer in the hallway, a woman with dark streaks of something across her blue shirt, smudges of grease on her face, and her hair in disarray. Evan thought he remembered her as one of the scientists who had been helping to contain the damage to as few labs as possible. They nodded at each other as they passed, an acknowledgement that they'd all survived and would take care of the rest tomorrow.

Five minutes and an eternity later Evan was at his quarters. He went inside and touched the wall to let Atlantis know that he wanted the lights as dim as possible while still being able to see where he was going. He didn't actually have to touch Atlantis in order for it to recognize his ATA Gene and respond to him, according to Dr. McKay, but he had gotten used to doing so when playing light switch at Cheyenne Mountain.

He covered his mouth as he yawned and made his way to his laundry hamper. Somehow he would fit in laundry tomorrow even if it meant staying up late again. It had only took a month on Atlantis for him to learn that if he left his laundry until he had time to do it he would run out of clean clothes to wear ridiculously fast. Down to his boxers, Evan stepped into the bathroom and washed the worst of the grime off his face, hands and forearms. The rest could wait until he woke up again.

Resting his hand on the wall again, Evan turned the lights completely off and turned the translucent windows to darkened panes. Some nights, usually when David stayed over, he left the windows open so they could look out to the night sky and the ocean horizon, but Evan slept better in complete darkness. He walked towards his bed and gave a shout that was rather unseemly for a military officer who was accustomed to sneaking around in the dark in combat situations as he tumbled to the ground over something that shouldn't have been on his floor.

Atlantis brightened the lights immediately, not enough to blind him but enough so that he could see what he'd tripped over. Evan stared in confusion at the pair of aluminum crutches that had probably been propped against his desk chair before he'd fallen over them. Those definitely hadn't been there when he'd left in the morning.

"Evan? That you?"

Evan got to his feet, absently rubbing his shins where he'd impacted the crutches against the floor. "Yeah, it's me," he said. He refrained from asking who else would it be: Evan had been over simple safety procedures dozens of times with David, including not asking if it was Evan if David didn't already know, but it never seemed to stick.

"You okay?" David asked as he pushed away the quilt that had been almost completely covering him and rubbed his eyes.

"Are you?" Evan asked. He was staring at David's leg, which had been outside the quilt with his ankle propped up on one of the pillows. His ankle was swathed in thick bandages, with only the tips of his toes showing at the end.

"I'm fine." David's voice was still a little slurred from sleep and his eyes weren't quite focused on Evan.

Evan spotted a half empty water bottle and a packet of what was probably pain pills on his nightstand. "What happened? When did this happen?" He felt more than a little guilty that David hadn't called him, or maybe had called him and Evan hadn't gotten the call on his radio because he'd been on the emergency channel. He knew he couldn't always be there, the city had to come first, but he would still want to know if David was hurt even if he couldn't go to him right away.

"I fell in one of the landscaped greenhouses. There wasn't supposed to be a hole dug there, or maybe there was because sometimes I get a little turned around in there, but I stepped into it and sprained my ankle." David shrugged, looking a little bit embarrassed. "Oh, Doc says I'm not to go off-world for at least two weeks, probably three."

Evan grimaced in sympathy and sat down on the edge of his bed. "When did you fall?" he asked again, noticing that David hadn't answered.

"Just after lunch," David said. "I was going to call you when I finished at the infirmary, but I knew you were in meetings for another hour. And then I was going to call you when you finished, but I figured it was easier for me to come back here and wait for you rather than make you come to my quarters, and your quarters are closer to the infirmary. And then I took the pills the Doc gave me, and they must have knocked me out pretty good. I'm guessing you didn't get to have dinner because otherwise you would have been looking for me?"

"One of those days," Evan muttered. "You must be starving."

David shook his head and yawned. "I just want to go back to sleep. Food later." He scooted over on the bed to make room for Evan and blinked at him with tired eyes.

"Okay," Evan agreed. He propped the crutches up against the wall where David could reach them and neither of them would trip over them in the night and climbed under the covers. The lights gradually dimmed until it was completely dark and Evan helped David get arranged so they were both comfortable. Evan stroked David's hair where his head was resting on Evan's shoulder and they both settled in without falling to sleep.

About ten minutes later David's stomach growled and he shifted against Evan.

Evan smiled and thought about the sandwiches he'd eaten in his office after his meetings and just before the explosion had set alarms off in his head and on the computer. "Shall we go down to the mess hall and have dinner?"

"Yeah." David sighed. "Do we have to put on shoes?"

"Nope. This is a sweatpants and t-shirts only mission. You up for it?" Evan asked as he reached to the wall to brighten the lights again.

David stifled a yawn as he sat up. "Why not? I'm ready for another adventure."


End file.
